I’ve just finished a bunch of searches and I can’t find anything with the ACLU involved with proselytizing from a street or sidewalk.
You do realize that there are degrees in religion, right? And lots and lots of classes. Christian Symbolism for one.
I’m not familiar with Wayne Dyer.
Comic Sans, of course!
What you say and what you support betrays your hypocrisy. You say you are for separation of church and state but when it comes to actually supporting policies that are in line with what you say, you find some fault with it to not support it. Get this through your head: if you support the separation of church and state, then you HAVE to support the ban on school prayer. They are mutually exclusive.
If you say you are against the state imposing religion, then you MUST support the ban on school prayer. To claim anything less marks you as a hypocrite.
You can say anything you want, but when it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is how you vote. There is a reason why the ACLU fought against school-led official prayer: because it violates the separation of church and state. Until you get that, until you have that epiphany, you’re going to continue to think you can hold both positions when in fact you cannot, they are diametrically opposed to each other
If you come off as a right-winger, then it is completely the fault of you due to what you support. If you don’t want to come off as a rightie, then don’t support the shit you support, simple as that
More bullshit.
And it’s not to “toss something to the Christians”. The difference you are failing to see is that the ACLU fights AGAINST religion in government, but FOR the religious freedom of individuals.
Don’t let Beck or Limbaugh or whoever told you it’s simply “ACLU against religion” get away with that bullshit.
Lol
The ACLU is not anti religion. Like the case were they defended school athletes having the right to put the 10 commandments on their lockers. That is obviously not anti religion. But if the public school said you have to put them on your locker, they would have been on the other side.
Last post: no, justanotherdeaf I wasn’t correcting the grammar. As far as I can tell, the grammar’s fine. I was talking about being referred to as part of a “they” who are the reason that rights have to be protected in the first place. No, that isn’t true. Believing Christians sometimes get fooled into joining something that is like that, but they discover its true nature sooner or later. These guys are dishonest. BMH didn’t mention the ACLU? Obvious from my post, I didn’t imply that she did. Murder is both rights and persecution-related, which was the subject and which the writer knew. Shell game. I will leave you to this font of wisdom; it is a big, fat waste of time.
Absolutely last post: I never said that I didn’t support the ban on school prayer. I said I saw that they seemed a little too zealous to silence the Christians, then that when I read the supposed charter I felt I could see through their motives a little too much to support them anymore. They are pretty antichrist; even though they occasionally defend a Christian, they in general work to silence Christians. They have filed suit against many districts for allowing things like the reports on Jesus and the t-shirts. Allowing student speech is not state-sponsored speech, and they and all of you know it. Goodbye, snarling he-men.
Yes, you are given that you actually buy into the whole “Christians are persecuted” mythology.
“Believing Christians” are often perfectly happy to ram their beliefs down the throats of others.
Neither I nor as far as I can tell anyone else has any idea what you are talking about here. What does some woman I’ve never heard of have to do with “apparent plans to murder half the human race”?
And you still haven’t explained your Nietzsche comment.
If the ACLU starts defending Comic Sans, then they really SHOULD be stopped.
Completely, totally the last: Musicat, you mean forced to think like you.
One last time: is ramming our speech down your throat simply speaking in public words you don’t care to hear, or is it making you a truly captive audience and truly forcing you to endure it? THAT’S forcing down the throat; that’s brainwashing. What we get all the time is people telling us that our free, non-government-sanctioned speech will not be tolerated. You don’t even seem to care which is which. And, by the way, the garbage about the ACLU and the sidewalks is dishonest. I was using hyperbole, but not that far from reality. I meant that we are losing our freedoms; obviously to you fine gentlemen that is nothing.
Right there you have hit the nail on the head. To make one generality, the ACLU is opposed to a ‘right’ some Americans believe themselves to have that could be summarized as 'the right to enlist the power of the state to coerce others to behave in what they believe to be a proper manner."
That right does not exist. You may search the Constitution, the state constitutions, the statute books, the Bible in virtually every translation, the Qu’ran, etc. You will not find it.
That however does not deter some people from thinking they possess it.
Prayer in schools has never been banned. What was banned was any effort by the state, in the form of school boards, administration, faculty, etc., to require any student in a public school to engage in a devotional act or taught statement of belief prescribed by the government or any of its employees.
Likewise the government may not use government funds to provide money, goods, or services to persons where there is an endorsement of a religion or a religious test for who receives them. That means you may not use state money to build or maintain a cross marking the spot where someone died. It means you may only display the Ten Commandments in a publicly owned place as a part of an array of “sources of our law” that also includes things like Hammurabi’s Code, the Magna Carta, the Codes of Justinian and Napoleon, etc. It means that as long as the Boy Scouts of America bar unbeliever and gay leaders and boys from membership, they do not deserve one penny of taxpayer money. And so on.
It is not “You can’t be a Christian” – it’s “You can’t use the power of the State to coerce others into becoming Christians.”
And anyone who actually paid attention to what Jesus taught should be celebrating that fact.
That is simply your perception and you’re wrong. Your refusal to actually look at the things they defend blinds you to vague motives dreamed up in the bowels of right-wing think tanks and spit out by mindless chattering talking heads. The ACLU is consistent in their defense of not just Christianity, but all religion. It just so happens that Christians are pushing the hardest against them, so your confirmation bias would point to a disproportionate attack on Christians by the ACLU.
Allowing student speech isn’t state-sponsored speech but allowing it in the context of administrative support IS because the school is an arm of the state
You’re starting to confute your own arguments. Nobody here is telling anyone, least of all you, that your free, non-government-sanctioned speech will not be tolerated. They have tried repeated to question you on the validity of your claims, your sources, and your citations and you have either ignored or brushed them off. The Dope doesn’t like to listen to bullshit, especially unsupported bullshit. You WILL be tolerated, but in the context of us keeping you around to call you on your bullshit.
No, but Christians not on the Religious Right generally aren’t opposed to the ACLU.
If only I could live in a country where a house of worship existed on every other street corner, where the FBI did not smash down the doors of houses where people give thanks to their god before their dinner, where Congress and NASCAR were allowed to have non-denominational prayers.
Where might such a country be?
Absolute last time: I do celebrate the fact as far as it is true. I hate coersion even more as a Christian than as a democrat. “He who is convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”–me included. However, things are not truly working out that way, and the business of going after the private speech of schoolkids has resulted in people, the ones who were in school those years, especially, thinking that they have the right to silence anybody who says what they do not wish to hear, with fierceness and threats. Wash your hands of it if you like, but it is true. Also, how can threats of murder by well-connected elites and their followers be irrelevant to human rights? Especially when it is exactly this reason that we are being called upon to die? The way that was skirted in order to mess with me with a verbal shell game is very telling about your blind dedication to human rights. I leave you blowhards to your big nothing.
mcfirefly: Please cite an actual case where the ACLU went after the private speech of schoolkids. Just one actual case.
It’s not. You’re posting, aren’t you?
Last: I don’t even own a TV, much less cable. I have seen Beck on my iPod touch on Wendy’s wifi, but I can’t stand what he stands for. I am taking great risks to simply say I am not happy that we are losing our freedoms; are any of you risking anyrhing? I am risking torture, not just death. I mentioned my family’s persecution; notice how you glide around that to think of new little hairs to split against me. Goodbye worthless waste of time. Go smoke a big cuban cigar.